Well, Sunday I had a race I'd been looking forward to all year. Epic dirt, super fun course. Bike was running great all morning in practice, and during pre-race warm up. Come race time, the board dropped, I cleared the first turn, bike stumbled and died by the second turn. Would not start back up. Swapped plugs, tried all kinds of crap, then towed back to the trailer after the AA row lapped me still sitting there.
I pulled the skid plate off and took the ignition cover off, nothing looked a miss, a bit of dust. I couldn't pull the flywheel off to check the stator because my clutch/ignition holder is at my dad's house.
I pulled some more parts off and looked down the spark plug hole with a flashlight, looked rather pitted for being about 10 hours on a new Vertex piston. Pulled the Lectron off, the carb boot, and pulled the reed cage out, they still looked great. I could see and feel scarring on the piston. Not cool.
So, I pulled the head, then the cylinder to get a good view of the damage. The front of the piston was damaged worse. It had a couple spots on the piston about the size of the tip of a ball point pin that were blown out and ended up as deep grooves in the cylinder wall, exhaust valve, and piston and some nice craters in the head.
I've got an '02 CR250 bottom end sitting on the bench, but I hadn't gotten around to finding a cylinder and head for it yet, let alone having the right CDI and coil for it, so I can't just swap that in there.
Pricing up new OEM parts gets up into the $1500-2000 range. Not sure why those cylinders are so expensive. So, I need a plan of action. Love the bike, in 130 hrs I've barely had an issue. But this is a bit hefty considering I still owe on it.
Cylinder - I should be able to get it fixed/plated. I've used Powerseal (thru Cycle Playground) in the past when I had my KTM 200 ported. That should knock the cost of that from $800 for OEM to around $200.
Head - I would think an engine shop would be able to machine this out, but I'm not sure. I might be able to sand/polish out the damage as well, but again not sure.
Exhaust valve - I think the only option is to get an OEM replacement.
CDI/Stator/Coil - Should I dump the Ducati set up and run the stator/flywheel/CDI/Coil from the '02 CR250? Since I already have the flywheel and stator, the rest is around $100 for OEM. I've read some sketchy things about the Ducati ignitions failing. Were the older set up better?
I'm going to pull off the flywheel tonight. It could be that the woodruff key just sheared off and the stator got out of time. But at the cost of the rebuild, I'm not sure what original components I should trust. I'm also thinking that the bottom end should be all gone through at this time as well, so I'll probably add that to the down time/cost -- and look for a craigslist bargain to finish the season on. Hopefully having this back together for the Oct 20 national enduro.
Any thoughts? If I could find a deal on a cylinder, exhaust valve, and head, I would really consider building up the CR250 and putting it in.
I pulled the skid plate off and took the ignition cover off, nothing looked a miss, a bit of dust. I couldn't pull the flywheel off to check the stator because my clutch/ignition holder is at my dad's house.
I pulled some more parts off and looked down the spark plug hole with a flashlight, looked rather pitted for being about 10 hours on a new Vertex piston. Pulled the Lectron off, the carb boot, and pulled the reed cage out, they still looked great. I could see and feel scarring on the piston. Not cool.
So, I pulled the head, then the cylinder to get a good view of the damage. The front of the piston was damaged worse. It had a couple spots on the piston about the size of the tip of a ball point pin that were blown out and ended up as deep grooves in the cylinder wall, exhaust valve, and piston and some nice craters in the head.
I've got an '02 CR250 bottom end sitting on the bench, but I hadn't gotten around to finding a cylinder and head for it yet, let alone having the right CDI and coil for it, so I can't just swap that in there.
Pricing up new OEM parts gets up into the $1500-2000 range. Not sure why those cylinders are so expensive. So, I need a plan of action. Love the bike, in 130 hrs I've barely had an issue. But this is a bit hefty considering I still owe on it.
Cylinder - I should be able to get it fixed/plated. I've used Powerseal (thru Cycle Playground) in the past when I had my KTM 200 ported. That should knock the cost of that from $800 for OEM to around $200.
Head - I would think an engine shop would be able to machine this out, but I'm not sure. I might be able to sand/polish out the damage as well, but again not sure.
Exhaust valve - I think the only option is to get an OEM replacement.
CDI/Stator/Coil - Should I dump the Ducati set up and run the stator/flywheel/CDI/Coil from the '02 CR250? Since I already have the flywheel and stator, the rest is around $100 for OEM. I've read some sketchy things about the Ducati ignitions failing. Were the older set up better?
I'm going to pull off the flywheel tonight. It could be that the woodruff key just sheared off and the stator got out of time. But at the cost of the rebuild, I'm not sure what original components I should trust. I'm also thinking that the bottom end should be all gone through at this time as well, so I'll probably add that to the down time/cost -- and look for a craigslist bargain to finish the season on. Hopefully having this back together for the Oct 20 national enduro.
Any thoughts? If I could find a deal on a cylinder, exhaust valve, and head, I would really consider building up the CR250 and putting it in.
